links for 2008-11-13

Angry gamers react to BBC Radio 4 report that they are “addicted” to World of Warcraft and accuse the reporter of painting a tired, cliched picture of their pastime and quering whether “addiction” is a word that can be applied to obsessive gamers. and whether ‘addiction’ is becoming redundant through overuse and misuse.

The rise and fall of the man variously described as the “national press mascot” and the “press’ assignment editor” but who seems to have been wrongfooted by the collapse of conservatisim in the recent US elections.

Ideas that the White House site will become “a social network—a kind of Facebook for citizens, a place where people can learn about and work toward passing the president’s agenda” – and a look at change.gov.

Mac DRM through Silverlight makes sense. But the interesting thought here is the idea of a fee and/or BBC set-top box for international viewers. Is the BBC about to convert its iPlayer advantage into becoming the world’s first genuinely global network?

links for 2008-11-10

links for 2008-11-08

President-Elect Obama is truly into this web and tech stuff. Also, his idea for a Cabinet-rank chief technology officer (or lternatively CIO) to promote openness in federal agencies and help the new president communicate with the electorate – should we have something like that in the UK?

All about “Social proof” – also known as herd mentality or the bandwagon effect, in which people tend to follow the crowd without evaluating the true merits for themselves, especially when the merits are ambiguous.

More from me

Here's links to other things that I'm doing: my tweets, my reviews blog (Taking The Short View), my motor sports blog (motorsports.ind), my Google Shared items. Please check them out if any of them sound like your sort of thing!